Here is a video of a speech that I gave a few months ago to an overflow crowd in Houston. I was talking about my predictions for immigration raids of churches, hospitals, synagogues, mosques and other places where immigration officials historically would not visit.

While the video is several months old, some of my predictions are already coming to fruition, where spouses of Americans with no criminal record are being arrested and deported and where according to some of my clients, immigration officials are “rounding-up” foreigners in some of the smaller, more rural areas. With my 30+ years of experience in immigration law, I am uniquely situated to advise individuals, companies and non-federal government agencies on how our laws work and exactly what is going on right now. I have been staying very busy, lately, doing just that.

In other matters at our office the past couple of weeks, I had the opportunity to visit with clients from some of the smaller countries of Africa, such as Equatorial Guinea, Burkina Faso (formerly known as Upper Volta) and Angola. In addition to providing legal advice to these clients, this Houston immigration lawyer and Miami immigration lawyer always finds it interesting to talk to them about their culture, language, and other aspects of their country.

On the employment law and employment discrimination law front, I am currently in Phoenix, Arizona for two days of depositions. My client sued Dignity Health in Phoenix, alleging he was fired due to sex discrimination and retaliation. The essence of his allegations are that his boss was sleeping with his co-worker, that Dignity knew about it and allowed it to continue, and when there was a lack of funding, his supervisor chose to keep his female co-worker (the one sleeping with the boss) , rather than my client. In addition to the two days of depositions, I have been enjoying the regional food, the dry heat and 100+degree temperatures, and the sight of all the exotic desert flowers and cactus plants.

Lastly, it has been a busy month for court hearings on our employment discrimination cases. We went to court twice this month in our client’s case against Wells Fargo, where our client claimed race discrimination, and the bank sued her back for alleging stealing money from the vault. We also had a court hearing in our client’s case against Hobby Lobby, where he alleges he was fired in retaliation for complaining about sex discrimination.

For further information, I may be reached in Houston at 713.850.0066 or in our Miami office at 305.538.6800. I can also be reached at bruce.coane@gmail.com.

The immigration laws passed by Congress provide special provisions for people with disabilities. In particular, there is a process called disability naturalization, where individuals who cannot learn to speak English or otherwise retain information because of a disability, can be exempted from certain parts of the naturalization process.

As background, naturalization is the process to become a U.S. citizen. To become a citizen, a person must first, generally, have been a permanent resident with a green card. To obtain citizenship through naturalization, a person must speak English, take a history test and know how to read and write English. An exception to all of this, is if they have a disability such as blindness, deafness, mental disorder, etc.

While historically, the immigration service has approved many of these cases, I have noticed a trend in Houston lately where the interviewing officers are looking for ways to deny disability naturalization or otherwise give the disabled a hard time. For example, in a case that I had at the Houston immigration office today, the officer, Ms. C. Arredando, claimed that she could not read the doctor’s writing on the immigration form that the doctor is supposed to complete.

While doctors may be notorious for their poor handwriting, the doctor’s writing in this case was clearly legible to this Houston immigration attorney. When the officer was losing that argument, she then claimed that the doctor’s signature was not original, but rather a scanned copy. All the while, this poor disabled client who does not speak English was being told she would have to come back (after driving two hours to get there and waiting over an hour until her name was called) another day with a clearer form and original signature.

Sadly, this is the new reality of how disabled clients may expect to be treated when visiting the Houston immigration office. The notion of the government accommodating people with disabilities does not seem to ring true, from my recent experiences, at the Houston immigration office. Perhaps the current strategy of the Houston immigration office is to frustrate as many people as possible so that they will drop their efforts to become a U.S. citizen.

]]>https://immigrationandemploymentlaw.wordpress.com/2017/07/06/immigration-office-discriminates-against-the-disabled/feed/1coaneWPimagehttps://immigrationandemploymentlaw.wordpress.com/2017/07/06/immigration-office-discriminates-against-the-disabled/Busy Week for Immigration Newshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CoaneAssociates/~3/KFCDzP1NxmI/
https://immigrationandemploymentlaw.wordpress.com/2017/06/30/busy-week-for-immigration-news/#respondFri, 30 Jun 2017 15:05:26 +0000http://immigrationandemploymentlaw.wordpress.com/?p=1625]]>While my staff and I have been hard at work helping individuals and companies to solve their immigration issues this week, there have been many stories about immigration in the news.

The top story this week was the Supreme Court‘s decision to set aside part of the injunction that stopped the travel ban ordered by the president.

The government acted quickly and the travel ban is now back in effect. As a result, individuals from six mostly-Muslim countries, are prohibited from entering the United States. The one exception carved out by the court is for individuals with “a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States.” While that seems simple enough, in the opinion of this Houston immigration lawyer and Miami immigration lawyer, the Supreme Court muddled that exception by saying “a close familial relationship is required.” That opened the door for Homeland Security to exclude most family members as not being “close” enough.

In other immigration news, the government continues to give a hard time to immigrant investors who start a business or are part of a group investment that hires at least ten USA workers. These immigrants have invested either $500,000 or $1million, and are often challenged by the government as not fully meeting all the other parts of the complex regulations. The new thing for the government is to deny the green card application (or its renewal), and then put these million-dollar-job-creating immigrants into deportation proceedings. This week, one of my lawyer friends won such a case in deportation court in Los Angeles. I encourage all investors to fight to keep their green cards and their American business.

In today’s newspaper, I saw a story that the government is now going to target parents who paid a smuggler to bring their children to the U.S. I’ve met many of these parents and they are generally very unsophisticated and certainly have no criminal intent. In fact, there is a waiver in the law for parents who smuggle their own children. As of today, the government has not said what law will allow them to prosecute these parents.

This week also saw the release of a new green card form (I-485 for adjustment of status) that now contains 42 pages of instructions and 18 pages of complicated questions. For those who felt they could do the forms by themselves, this new form and its instructions will certainly make applicants think twice about self-representation before Homeland Security.

On the positive side of immigration news, the government continues to approve work visas, green cards, self-petitions for highly skilled and accomplished individuals, investor visas, etc. and this Houston immigration lawyer and Miami immigration lawyer enjoys opening “most” mail that I receive from the immigration office each week.

For questions or further information, I may be reached at bruce.coane@gmail.com, or 713.850.0066 and 305.538.6800.

]]>https://immigrationandemploymentlaw.wordpress.com/2017/06/30/busy-week-for-immigration-news/feed/0coanebacpostjunehttps://immigrationandemploymentlaw.wordpress.com/2017/06/30/busy-week-for-immigration-news/Fox News Anchor and other Exciting Developments at Coane and Associateshttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CoaneAssociates/~3/lbuZSZFoxhM/
https://immigrationandemploymentlaw.wordpress.com/2017/06/23/fox-news-anchor-and-other-exciting-developments-at-coane-and-associates/#respondFri, 23 Jun 2017 21:06:18 +0000http://immigrationandemploymentlaw.wordpress.com/?p=1576]]>It’s been another very busy week at our law firm. First, on Thursday, I had the honor of meeting Gretchen Carlson, former news anchor at Fox News. This is a picture of me with Gretchen Carlson. She came to speak at our National Employment Lawyers Association annual conference in San Antonio, Texas. Some may recall that she was the victim of sex harassment, and of course, our law firm handles cases like that on a very regular basis. Because of an arrangement I made with her today, this Houston employment lawyer and Miami employment lawyer will be giving Ms. Carlson’s book about sex harassment to each client who comes to see us for a sex harassment consultation. Her book will be released in October of this year.

Also this week, I spoke at the Texas Employment Lawyers Association conference on the matter of Settlement of Employment Discrimination cases. My law firm has achieved over $10 million in settlements for our clients, and I shared my views about settlements with my colleagues from across the State of Texas.

With regard to our employment discrimination cases in litigation, we spent significant time working on our clients’ two cases against Wells Fargo. In one of those cases where my client is claiming she was fired for discriminatory reasons, the bank has sued her back. That’s right, Wells Fargo Bank, of all companies, had the gall to sue an employee who has a lawsuit pending against them for discrimination. Could this be a signal to others who sue the popular target that they better think twice, lest Wells Fargo sue them back? Now my poor client who was fired by Wells Fargo, must defend herself against their counterclaim lawsuit.

In our other client’s case, we scheduled depositions this week, for July, in a case where my client says Wells Fargo fired her due to her medical condition. Of course, the bank denies that, and claims they had valid reasons for firing my client. We’ll see how their defenses hold up under the scrutiny of depositions.

On the immigration side of our law practice, we were hired on a couple of new immigration EB-1 extraordinary worker cases this week. In both cases, the client has an L-1A working visa and they desire to establish roots in America. Unfortunately, their employer won’t sponsor them for a green card, so this Houston immigration lawyer and Miami immigration lawyer, is helping them to get a green card through the self-sponsored EB-1 extraordinary worker process. One of my favorite parts of this visa is that we often get the case approved in less than 15 days, and the actual green card approved and received in less than 6 months. It is truly an amazing way to get a green card and requires no college degree and no sponsoring employer.

Also this week, two of our clients with cases in immigration court got a reprieve from a trial date for June and the other for July. Surprisingly, the Houston judge in their cases suddenly resigned her job. So, with no immigration judge to hear their deportation trial, it will be reassigned and probably allow them to stay another year or two or three before facing trial. This is huge for them because they both had very weak political asylum cases.

Additionally, in our case against Hobby Lobby, we had a mediation, but the case failed to settle. So, that case where our client states he complained about his boss Glenn Lucadou discriminating against female employees, and then was retaliated against and fired, will be heading for a jury trial in a Houston courtroom.

Finally, this Houston employment lawyer is excited about our client’s deposition next week in his case against Baylor College of Medicine. In that case, it is alleged that his supervisor was hanging up on job reference calls and otherwise implying our client did a bad job. This was rubbing salt in the wounds of our client after Dr. Robert Bryan Jr. fired our client. The lawsuit claims that our client was fired because of his medical condition in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

For further information, I may be reached at 713.850.0066 or 305.538.6800, or by email at bruce.coane@gmail.com

Here is a video that I recorded a few years ago about the immigration court process. The procedures have not changed and hopefully the viewer will find this Houston immigration lawyer and Miami immigration lawyer explanation to be helpful and informative.

It is very important for a foreign national to be properly prepared for court. Moreover, no one should be going to court without a lawyer. In Houston, there are various court venues, including the jail court on the north side of town, and two different federal buildings in downtown Houston. In South Florida, there are jail courts at the various immigration jails, plus the non-detained courts which are all housed in one building in downtown Miami.

There is a lot of news concerning the EB-5 method of investing in the U.S. in order to get a green card. What gets little publicity, however, is how these EB-5 investors get any return on their investment (nominal at best), but more importantly, how can they extract, or “sell” their $500,000 interest in the investment. This important information is missing from every article I read about EB-5.

These are very important questions for any investor to ask. The investor should also investigate and do due diligence to determine whether they ever really will be able to extract their investment. Ultimately, most investors have a partnership interest in an enterprise, and that interest is worth whatever a willing buyer will pay the investor to buy it. This Houston immigration lawyer and Miami immigration lawyer says that the partnership interest is very unlikely to be able to be sold for $500,000 or more, and most likely cannot be sold at all, or has very little value ($10,000?). Of course, each investment is different, but due diligence is the key.

In light of the foregoing, an investor must ask themselves if it is worth it to pay $500,000 to invest in EB-5 where the investment may very well be worthless, and there is no guarantee of getting a green card, or is it better to explore other visa avenues.

In my own personal experience as a board certified immigration lawyer, it is much better and safer to look at other options. I have found that, of my clients who had $500,000 available and ready to “invest” in EB-5, it was a much safer investment to spend less than 5% of that amount to try an EB-1 extraordinary visa for a green card. Most of my clients who have over $500,000 of available cash, have qualified for EB-1 green card status. Moreover, the EB-1 green card is significantly faster to get than EB-5.

I urge all potential immigrants considering EB-5 to take a more serious look at the EB-1, self-sponsored green card for extraordinary workers.

In certain parts of the country, police are taking it upon themselves to act as immigration officers. In the most recent case of illegal arrests and detentions, Ariel Vences-Lopez, a 23 year old from Minneapolis was detained by a transit rail police officer. Mr. Lopez failed to pay his fare and refused to verbally respond. This led to police officer, Andy Lamers, proceeding to taser and detain Mr. Lopez due to his immigration status.

In the New York Times article, police Chief John Harrington states that, “it is not his department’s policy to question riders about their immigration status. Harrington said the officer who questioned Vences-Lopez in the video is no longer with the department”. The police officer who over-stepped his power was disciplined.

While most state governments ensure to keep the line between police officers and immigration officers very clear and even punishable if crossed, the State of Texas encourages their police officers to ask for immigration status under Senate Bill 4 (SB4). This new law signed by Governor Gregg Abbott, grants local police the power to act as federal immigration officers. In an attempt to curb illegal immigration, Texas has taken a very tough stand against immigrants.

Senate Bill 4, which goes into effect on September 1, 2017 is already creating a lot of negative backlash. Now a simple act like driving without a license can get you detained and even deported if you are of color. Police are even encouraged to ask for immigration status in domestic violence calls. In another controversial news story from The Washington Post, a woman was detained after seeking domestic abuse protection at a Texas courthouse.

For further information, this Houston immigration lawyer and Miami immigration lawyer can be contacted at 713.850.0066, 305.538.6800 or bruce.coane@gmail.com.

I meet with many potential clients who are on an L-1A or L-1B visa and want to get a green card. Sometimes, however, their employer will not sponsor them for a green card. This is especially true if they work for a giant multi-national company. In such cases, I often will suggest the EB-1 extraordinary worker green card, which does not require employer sponsorship.

To qualify, an individual needs to have some superb accomplishments in their work history, and have a few people willing to write a reference letter talking about their accomplishments. They do not need a letter from their employer. We simply need to show, among other things, that the person played a critical role for a business with a distinguished reputation. Plus, if the person had original business-related contributions of major significance in the field, this too, is compelling evidence.

So, workers who are employed or were employed by a large company, will often easily meet the requirement of a company with a distinguished reputation. Moreover, if they were part of a team, they likely will meet the requirement of original business-related contributions.

There is the FAQ about whether this work needs to have been done in the U.S., and the answer is, “no.” In fact, the applicant is not required to have ever been in the U.S. So, no USA experience is required.

This category of immigration allows for a green card for any worker, anywhere in the world, who has worked at a large company, or has created his own company with success, or has been part of a team at a company, as long as they meet the regulatory requirements to be considered extraordinary in their field.

For further information, this Houston immigration lawyer and Miami immigration lawyer can be contacted at 713.850.0066, 305.538.6800 or bruce.coane@gmail.com.

For those of you who know me well, I am a big fan of social media, so what a tremendous honor to meet the leader of Twitter and to hear about all the innovations in the works at Twitter and his vision for the future.

As an immigration lawyer, it was also nice to see the mix of workers at Twitter, including immigrants as well as American-born employees. The General Counsel, herself, of Twitter, is an immigrant (now a citizen) just like many of my clients. Thanks to the H-1B visa and EB-1 and EB-2green card status, high tech companies have been able to recruit the best and the brightest to work at their companies, along with the best and brightest American workers.

One of my favorite immigration topics is the EB-1 extraordinary worker green card. The great part of this is that it is a law which permits a foreign national to sponsor themselves for a green card. No American sponsor is necessary and no one signs the forms except the foreign national.

One other important point is that the foreign national is not even required to be in the U.S. In fact, there is no requirement that the person has ever been to the U.S. I have done a number of cases where the person lived in Asia or the Middle East and had never been to the U.S., yet we got their green card case approved.

To be qualified, the person must have some accomplishments in life, which could be in science, business, sports, art/music, etc. If they also have some notoriety in their own country or elsewhere, that is helpful, but not required.

In this short video, I talk about the EB-1 green card immigration process based on extraordinary skills in art.